CAM Reconciliation: The Year-End True-Up for Commercial Tenants

How a landlord or manager compares what each commercial tenant paid toward a building’s shared costs with what those costs actually were — pools, shares, gross-up, caps, the administrative fee, expense stops, finalizing, the statements and recording how each balance was settled.

Most commercial leases have the tenant pay a monthly estimate toward the building’s shared costs — cleaning, snow, landscaping, insurance, property tax, management — and then settle up once a year against what those costs actually were. That year-end settle-up is a CAM (common area maintenance) reconciliation. Seayora works it out from the expenses you already record in the Expense Center, draws a statement for every tenant, and keeps a record of how each balance was settled.

Setting up a pool

  • Open CAM reconciliation — under Money on the landlord and management portals, and in the Tools of the iPhone and Android apps — and choose New pool.
  • A pool is the set of units that share the costs, and the Expense Center categories those costs are recorded under. All the units in one pool belong to one owner.
  • For each category, say whether it is controllable (the costs a cap applies to — usually everything except taxes, insurance and utilities) and whether it varies with occupancy (the costs a gross-up applies to — cleaning, for example).
  • Choose how each tenant’s share is worked out: by floor area (the unit’s area over the pool’s total area — the units added up, or a total you enter, such as the building’s rentable area) or by the fixed percentage written in each lease.
  • Then the rules your leases set: a gross-up percentage, an administrative fee and whether it applies to controllable costs or to everything, and a cap on controllable expenses — non-cumulative (each year against the year before) or cumulative (compounding from a base year).

Adding the tenants

On the Tenants tab, add each commercial lease on the pool’s units with its monthly CAM estimate. A lease with a fixed share also carries its percentage. A lease with an expense stop or a base year carries that amount, and the tenant then pays only its share above it.

Working out a year

  • On the Reconcile tab, pick the year. Seayora reads every Expense Center row dated in that year, on the pool’s units, in the pool’s categories. Draft, void and refunded rows are left out.
  • Exclude a row that is not recoverable — a capital repair, say — with a reason, or add a line that is not in the Expense Center. Both print on the statements.
  • Gross-up raises only the costs that vary with occupancy, and only when the building was less leased than the percentage you set.
  • The cap limits controllable costs and is applied before the administrative fee.
  • Each tenant’s share is pro-rated for the days its lease ran in the year. What it paid is its monthly estimate for those months, or the figure you enter if it paid something different.
  • The difference is the balance: an amount due from the tenant, or a credit owed to them. What no tenant pays — empty units, a common area, the part below an expense stop — is the owner’s part, and the figures always add up to the pool’s total to the cent.
  • Save it as a draft as often as you like. A year that has not ended is marked preliminary.

Finalizing and the statements

  • Finalize freezes the figures and records who finalized them. Seayora refuses while something is missing — a unit with no area on a floor-area pool, percentages that add up to more than the whole pool, or a year that has not ended.
  • A final year can be reopened as a draft until the statements are sent.
  • Send statements gives every tenant a PDF statement by email and in their Documents: the pool’s costs by category, the gross-up, the cap, the fee, their share, what they paid and the balance. Once they are sent the year cannot be reopened, and a statement already sent is never sent twice.

Settling each balance

Seayora does not charge or refund anybody here. Bill a balance due or credit a balance owed the way the lease provides — on the next rent charge, a separate invoice, or a refund — and then record how it was settled with Settled…, so the year shows what became of every balance.

Connected assistants

A connected AI assistant can read your pools and a year’s reconciliation with every tenant’s balance, through the cam_reconciliations tool. It cannot set up a pool, finalize a year or send statements: those are a named person’s decisions about what the leases say.

Frequently asked questions

Does Seayora decide what is recoverable?

No. The lease does. Seayora works out the figures from the rules you enter and the expenses you include or exclude; whether a cost is recoverable under a particular lease is for you and, where it matters, your counsel.

Why is a tenant’s share smaller than its floor area suggests?

Because its lease did not run the whole year. A share is pro-rated for the days the lease ran in the year.

Can I change a year after the statements are sent?

No. The tenants are holding statements with those figures. If something was wrong, settle the difference with the tenant directly and record it under Settled….

Where does the expense data come from?

The Expense Center — the rows on the pool’s units, in the pool’s categories, dated in the year. Recording expenses there as they happen is what makes the year-end take minutes.

Does a residential tenant see this?

No. CAM reconciliation is for leases you add to a pool, which are normally commercial. A tenant sees only their own statement, in their Documents.

Related guides

Related features and guides

  • Utility Billing: Splitting a Building’s Utility Bill Between Its Units — Documentation. How a landlord or manager splits a water, sewer, trash, gas or electricity bill between a building’s units, how each way of splitting it works, what stays with the owner, what the tenant sees, where the share is charged, and how to withdraw a bill.
  • Expense Inbox — Email or Drop Invoices and Receipts Into Your Books — Documentation. A private email address and a drop zone for supplier invoices and receipts: each one is read into a draft, waits in the inbox, and becomes an expense or a bill only when you file it.
  • Receipts, Notices & Statements — Documentation. The PDFs Seayora issues — what produces each one, where they are kept, and what they can and cannot be used for.
  • Split Rent with Roommates — Feature. Roommates each pay their portion of rent directly from their own bank account or card. The landlord sees one compiled total — nobody has to front the whole month.
  • AutoPay & Automated Rent Reminders — Feature. Tenants set up AutoPay once and rent drafts automatically on the due date written in the lease. Automated reminders go to anyone who is not on AutoPay.
  • Automated Late Fees — Feature. Set your grace period and late fee structure once — flat or percentage — and Seayora calculates and applies it automatically, with no uncomfortable conversations.

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